Vite on macOS serves wrong project on default port (cache issue?)

[meodai]

Hi, I'm experiencing a strange issue on macOS with Vite.

When I run npm run dev on some projects (especially on the default port 5173), the browser sometimes shows the wrong project — specifically, a different Vite project I had previously worked on. It's like it's stuck serving the old app.

This only happens with certain projects and seems tied to the port being reused. If I change the port (e.g., to 5174), it works as expected and shows the correct project.

Browser: Chrome, Safai & Firefox

Temporary fix
Changing the dev server port in vite.config.js resolves the issue.

Possible causes?

• Some sort of persistent cache or service worker?
• Vite dev server cache?
• macOS network or port-level caching?

What I’ve tried

• Clearing browser cache (Does it across browsers, so its probably not it, but hey I'm desperate)
• Using incognito mode
• Rebooting
• rm -rf node_modules/.vite (on the affected project and the last one)
• killall node
• sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
• lsof -i:5173 to make sure nothing else is running on that port
• try different node version using n
• now it gets crazy: curl "http://localhost:5173/" does not return anything. But both Chroma & Safari return the old project.

Any ideas what could be causing this or how to properly reset things? It might not be an issue directly linked to vite...

Thanks!

  System:
    OS: macOS 15.4.1
    CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Max
    Memory: 565.14 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 3.7.1 - /opt/homebrew/bin/fish
  Binaries:
    Node: 23.11.0 - /usr/local/bin/node
    npm: 10.9.2 - /usr/local/bin/npm
    pnpm: 8.15.2 - /usr/local/bin/pnpm
    bun: 1.0.26 - /usr/local/bin/bun
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 136.0.7103.93
    Safari: 18.4
  npmPackages:
    vite: ^5.2.0 => 5.4.11 (but happens across versions)

[meodai]

Turns out, i ran a project that had a service worker. The service worker would serve content.

1. Is there a way to bust service worker cache programmatically?
2. anything I could to in vite?